The recipe Charlene Amato-Geib shares isn’t for a meal; rather, it’s for a different kind of sustenance. It’s a recipe for a successful small group.
“Start with a few people who share the Lord’s desire,” read Amato-Geib, a 72-year-old member of St. Rita in Cottage Grove and a member of the parish’s Executive Cell Team (ECT). “Add a few other ardent Christians, plus other people who want to meet Jesus or get to know him better. Mix it all with a balanced and interesting sharing of your faith experience. Add a good dose of prayer and another of personal commitment through humble, free and selfless service. Add a teaspoon of common sense. Drop a pinch of humor, skim off all the professional or religious jargon and excess emotionality. Season with a generous welcome and interest in people and love. Reject all superiority and gossip. Let the Holy Spirit set hearts on fire to praise the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The recipe was among the resources Amato-Geib received as an ECT member. A main ingredient small group members can add to the mix? “Falling in love deeply, falling in love with Christ,” Amato-Geib said.
This January, an invitation is being extended to all parishioners in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to deepen this love and extend it to others as part of the Archdiocesan Synod implementation.
Parishes can share an invitation video, recorded by Archbishop Bernard Hebda, at Masses during what has formally been designated as Small Group Invitation Weekend either Jan. 13-14 or Jan. 20-21.
“We have a long history of small groups in our archdiocese and wherever the Church is alive, so are small groups,” the archbishop said in the invitation video. “Therefore, beginning this Lent, please join a small group in your parish — either an existing small group ministry or especially one of the newly-formed Parish Evangelization Cells.”
The formation of small groups continues the first-year focus of implementing the Archdiocesan Synod. Archbishop Hebda identified that focus more than a year ago in his pastoral letter “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent from the Upper Room,” Proposition 19 — to “create or grow a small group ministry at every parish that fosters personal relationships, builds community and provides formation to help parishioners grow as joyful missionary disciples of Christ.” That proposition was among the top five voted-upon propositions during the Synod.
“Small groups continue to be an excellent vehicle for the provision of Christ-centered care, with heart speaking to heart,” Archbishop Hebda wrote.
In the invitation video, Archbishop Hebda said the Parish Evangelization Cell System (PECS) model of small groups was selected because “it is easily learned, its content is flexible, it directly builds up parish life, and most of all because it equips participants to reach out to others in an authentic, non-threatening way.”
This model of small group encourages members “to become more aware of God’s action in our lives and, therefore, to be more aware of his action in others’ lives so that they can come to know him as well,” said Deacon Joseph Michalak, director of the Office of Synod Evangelization for the archdiocese.
The ability to talk about this action openly, and to learn and reflect with others, helps build authentic connection in service of God, said Laura Haraldson, facilitator of Synod implementation for the Office of Synod Evangelization.
“You go so quickly into a much deeper relationship than I think we typically do in today’s society, when you have that opportunity to be in that kind of healthy, holy intimacy of a small group,” Haraldson said.
This kind of relationship is something many are seeking in today’s world, said Gizella “Gizzy” Miko, Synod small group facilitator for the Office of Synod Evangelization.
“I think our world is really lonely, especially now, maybe more than any other time in history,” Miko said. “And I think we see that in people, they’re longing to have that community. But not just simply community — Christian community, community oriented towards Christ. I think that’s really what people are looking for, is that place to walk with others closer to Christ, and I think small groups are the avenue.”
A typical small group organized through PECS will consist of six to 12 people. Regular meetings roughly an hour and a half long will emphasize “prayer and authentic, community-building encounter with Christ,” according to planning materials. Decisions about meeting times and locations will be made by small group members, Deacon Michalak said.
A small group meeting will consist of seven “moments,” according to the Office of Synod Evangelization. The meeting will open with praise and song. Next will be a sharing of how individual group members have seen God working in their lives and how they have responded, especially in sharing God’s love with others. Then, a pastor-approved teaching element that is in keeping with the magisterium of the Church can take place, followed by leader-facilitated discussion. Announcements, typically about ways the group can connect with the parish, will follow. Intercessions — prayer for those in the group or others — and healing prayer — or time to “respond to any promptings of the Holy Spirit to be able to pray for someone in a special way if they’re going through a particularly difficult time” Miko said — will close the meeting.
Though there is a structure to the PECS model, Deacon Michalak said it all “serves relationship. Groups serve a higher end. … It’s relationship with God and relationship with others.”
Amato-Geib said she appreciates this structure.
“The formality of the seven moments, this is what takes you to deeper depths,” she said. “This emphasis on prayer, on song and praise, on intercessory prayer, that’s huge. And that, in my opinion, has made a world of difference in what the small groups are going to do for the parish.”
Of the 12 Synod Evangelization Team (SET) members at a given parish in the archdiocese, the pastor appointed three to be the Executive Cell Team (ECT), or the core team to help lead the parish’s small group efforts in upcoming years. Small group leaders, meanwhile, include those among “the 72” — or those encouraged to carry out the Synod implementation at their parish — who participated in small group leader formation last year.
Four times in January, small group leaders will gather and emulate a small group meeting, walking through the meeting components with each other. Intended for those in each archdiocesan parish who will lead Parish Evangelization Cells, the practicum is “sort of like scrimmages,” Deacon Michalak said.
As groups take shape in Lent, Deacon Michalak said the vision is for PECS groups ultimately to multiply.
“You get beyond 10 or 12 people (in a group), it’s time to divide; cells divide, they grow. They multiply. They’re living. So, you’re always going to be generating — as a place of evangelization, awareness of God — in this very basic way. That’s the PECS specialty.”
Haraldson sees the future of small groups including growth beyond the parish. “That they continue to not just feed and renew the people within our pews, but they start to invite non-Catholics in, fallen away Catholics in, other people in our own proximity, authentically.”
The PECS model is not intended to replace existing small group ministries at parishes.
“Sometimes there’s a misconception that these PECS small groups are supposed to be the only kind of way to do small groups or that they’re supposed to replace groups,” Miko said. “That’s not the case. … You can have both flowers growing in the same field.”
“Don’t stop what you’re already doing, you don’t tear down or break something that’s working,” Deacon Michalak said. “But as a way of enhancing the parish, and especially in a missionary or evangelistic mode, the archbishop has asked that Parish Evangelization Cells be established and that’s what’s going to be established, whether it’s one group in a parish or we have some parishes that are ready to roll with 15 or 20 (groups) right off the bat.”
In addition to the PECS small groups being established, Miko suggested existing groups might benefit from adding an element of PECS into their group meetings.
Why invite groups to form in Lent? Lent is “a time of drawing closer to the Lord and what better way to draw closer to the Lord than alongside other people?” Miko said. “I think Lent is a very apropos time to really walk alongside others as we learn more about Christ, as we ultimately encounter Christ.”
The hope is small groups will meet beyond Lent.
“Some questions we’ve received are, ‘Well, are these groups only for Lent or are they meant to go after Easter? How long?’” Deacon Michalak said. “And to sort of be a little humorous: ‘Well, how long are you alive? Are you going to be a disciple of Jesus forever?’ Small groups are meant to go on and on.”
Haraldson said she is “filled with hope” thinking about the implementation of small groups.
“Imagine what it could be to increase our archdiocese even by 10 small groups. By 50,” Haraldson said. “We have (over) 180 parishes in our archdiocese. If every single one of them has one small group … you can’t tell me that that many people are not going to change something. It will, in a good way.”
To someone discerning whether to join a small group, Amato-Geib has these words: “The benefits of having a deeper relationship with Christ bring unprecedented joy and peace no matter what storm may rise.”
“Your faith becomes a way of life, not something just for Sunday,” she said. “And it’s not just for you, it’s for everybody in your path.”
The members of the Office of Synod Evangelization encourage those interested in joining a small group to take the first step and attend a meeting.
“Don’t stress yourself so much with it. Just come and see. Just give it a try. I believe the Lord will do the rest,” Haraldson said.
“Come and see; that’s the invitation,” Deacon Michalak said. “It’s not: read everything, understand it all … no, it’s: Come and see.”
FAITH ON FIRE
Shane Hoefer and the men who meet regularly in Hoefer’s backyard to enjoy root beers and a bonfire begin their small group gatherings with a prayer.
It’s a prayer “asking the Father to send the Holy Spirit to open our minds so we can understand the words that we’re going to explore,” Hoefer said.
In 2022, Hoefer, a 44-year-old father and parishioner of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, had the idea to “seek out some other dads, like-minded dads, and that was kind of the starting point.” What began in June as a suggested seven-week commitment has turned into a small group going strong, Hoefer said.
“We sort of tongue-in-cheek named it ‘Fire and Brimstone,’” he said.
Though the roughly eight or nine men are of different ages and have different occupations —some even have different faith backgrounds — “they’re all deep thinkers, spiritual folks,” Hoefer said.
During a meeting, the group reads Scripture and discusses its meaning. Members share their prayer intentions, “asking Jesus for his love and mercy” and close in prayer, Hoefer said.
Hoefer views the group as “such a needed apostolate because … there are dynamics in the world that make it difficult to figure out what is healthy masculinity. What’s it mean to be a responsible father? What’s it mean to be the spiritual head of the household? What’s it mean to be a man, and a faith-filled man, in today’s world?”
“There’s at least one guy in the group, maybe a couple, who say, and have said to me on more than one occasion, that this small group has become the most important thing in their week other than going to Mass,” Hoefer said. “I never would have expected that.”
The group is a way for these men to explore faith in depth.
“The importance of the small group model is really significant in light of this reality that folks have to find a way to live out their faith beyond the Mass,” Hoefer said.
